


i'm not cold when you're by my side (it's the season for us to be together)

by chasingredballoons



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas Fluff, F/F, Other, implied danny/kirsch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-28 20:35:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2746124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingredballoons/pseuds/chasingredballoons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You start listing off the things you know Carmilla likes, and get as far as leather, books, sarcasm and flirting before you realise buying the perfect Christmas present for your three hundred or so year old undead roommate might be a bit more difficult than you first thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm not cold when you're by my side (it's the season for us to be together)

**Author's Note:**

> canon up to ep30, spins off into au after that in which they discover the existence of the blade of hastur, carmilla retrieves it and they defeat the dean, with no one dying in the process.  
> supremely cheesy title from 'merry christmas baby' by brighten

The first snowfall at Silas happens on the second last day of November.

Carmilla’s out somewhere doing… whatever it is Carmilla does at the crack of dawn, also known as 5pm, and you’re using the rare peace and quiet and lack of cookie stealing to work on one of two papers you have due in on Friday morning. Honestly, you saved this hellhole of a school from its psychotic Dean of Students, and your teachers don’t even have the courtesy to extend your deadlines.

The door flies open when you’re about halfway through your paper and two thirds of the way through your current box of cookies, and Carmilla comes stomping in, grumbling to herself in a language you don’t recognise. There’s a book lying on her bed with the word Reykjavik in the title, so maybe you can add Icelandic to the extensive list of languages Carmilla’s apparently fluent in.

“Where have you been?” You ask without turning around, since you’re on a roll with this paper and if you can finish it within the hour you won’t have to cancel your pie date with Danny. It’s her turn to pay and you’re craving cherry right now.

“Shopping,” Carmilla replies grumpily, and that’s definitely not what you expected her to say. “I had to replace my pants after they became a casualty in the Halloween pumpkin massacre sometime, didn’t I?”

You can feel her glaring at the back of your head, and you laugh.

Carmilla can blame you all she wants, she’s still the one that picked the pumpkins from the patch that sprung up overnight next to the chemistry labs. And it’s certainly not your fault the pumpkins turned out to be alive, rightfully objected to being carved, and then ate Carmilla’s favourite leather pants in retaliation. Maybe the pants would’ve survived if Carmilla hadn’t insisted on carving her pumpkin so it had fangs.

“Also it’s snowing,” Carmilla adds on, and you jerk your head around so fast you’re amazed you don’t give yourself whiplash, and spring out of your chair, nearly knocking Carmilla over in your haste to get to the window.

You let out an excited squeak when you see that Carmilla’s telling the truth; there’s huge fluffy snowflakes falling from the sky, and the ground is already coated with a light dusting of white. The huge evergreen trees that make up the forest on the edge of campus are also turning white, the small pond beside the Lustig Theatre (which is surprisingly not currently on fire) froze over a few days ago, and what looks like Danny and Kirsch are standing in the middle of the quad, directing Zetas and Summer Society members in stringing up fairy lights across the buildings.

“I love Christmas,” you announce excitedly in response to the festive transformation Silas is undergoing, idly wondering what Carmilla’s limits for dorm room decorating are.

“Somehow I am not surprised by that information. Also it’s not even December yet cupcake,” Carmilla deadpans, settling herself on her bed and picking up the Reykjavik book.

“And you don’t?” You turn around, ignoring the second (and completely irrelevant, as far as you’re concerned) comment and catch Carmilla shaking her head. “Somehow I am not surprised,” you mimic her, rolling your eyes and turning back to watch the snow. Danny and Kirsch have given up on ordering people around and are now throwing snowballs at each other.

“I like winter, and I like the snow, it’s just the whole Christmas of it all that I’m not particularly a fan of.”

“That’s half the fun of winter!” You wave your hands dramatically in Carmilla’s direction as you walk back over to your desk, trying to drive your point home. It doesn’t really work; she just slumps further down on her bed, hiding her face behind her book. “Christmas trees, and decorations, and snow, and Santa hats, and ice skating, and-“ Carmilla cuts you off by fake gagging. “Wow, that’s real mature.”

Carmilla laughs, and you huff. “You complained about Halloween as well, is there anything you  _do_ like?”

(Carmilla had taken to calling you pumpkin in the lead up to Halloween, since the threat of being brutally murdered by her homicidal mother doesn’t seem to affect her sense of humour, and you hope there’s not going to be a trend of seasonal nicknames. You’re used to cupcake, and cutie, and sweetheart, but Carmilla calling you mince pie or Christmas pudding might be a little weird.)

“Oh, plenty of things,” Carmilla says, shooting you a lewd smirk over the top of her book. “Christmas just kind of loses its magic after a while. Once you’ve been alive over three hundred years it’s more effort than it’s worth to get all excited over a lit up tree.”

Sometimes you wonder how Carmilla doesn’t just collapse under the weight of her own brooding.

“So, you don’t have any plans for Christmas?”

“Of course I do, buttercup,” she deadpans, not bothering to look up from her book and you’re not sure if she’s being sarcastic or not until- “Every December 25th, William, Mommy dearest and I forget our differences in the spirit of the holiday and gather round for one big happy Karnstein-Eisen-Morgan family dinner. Truly a tragedy that it’ll only be a meal for one this year.”

You decide then and there that even though you won’t actually be at Silas on Christmas Day, you’re going to make sure Carmilla enjoys the holiday and all the lead-up to the actual day. It’s the polite thing to do after she helped you not become one fifth of a sacrifice to an ancient evil light.

The first item on your agenda: make her stop hating Christmas.

Maybe if you blare enough Christmas songs loudly in Carmilla’s direction she’ll somehow absorb some holiday spirit. You get through all of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and half of Baby It’s Cold Outside before Carmilla leaves the room.

Okay, so, second item on the agenda.

You start listing off the things you know Carmilla likes, and get as far as leather, books, sarcasm and flirting before you realise buying the perfect Christmas present for your three hundred or so year old undead roommate might be a bit more difficult than you first thought. Your gaze slides to your yellow pillow lying in its usual place on Carmilla’s bed. Maybe you could just put a bow on it and officially gift it to her. 

/

On December 1st, your classes are finished by 3pm, and you get back to the room just as Carmilla’s about to leave for one of her philosophy lectures. Almost as soon as she’s out the door, a bored  _see you later cutie_  tossed over her shoulder, you leap up from where you’re pretending to be engrossed in a book, slam and lock the door, before dragging a huge box of Christmas decorations out from under your bed.

You spend the first quarter of the two hours you know Carmilla will be vacant from the room attempting to untangle the fairy lights, swearing quietly and gradually more explicitly to yourself, and mostly just succeed in getting yourself tangled up in the wires. After you somehow manage to trip yourself up on an errant wire, sending you face first onto Carmilla’s bed, you admit defeat and text Danny to come to your rescue. She shows up five minutes later, and laughs at you for the next ten, before agreeing to help.

You lose track of time listening to Danny chatter on about her classes and the Summer Society, and the latest hairbrained schemes Kirsch keeps trying to get her involved in.

She’s in the middle of telling you a fairly unpleasant story about how one of the new additions to the Summer Society accidentally broke into a greenhouse full of wolfsbane – and yeah, Danny getting all werewolf-y every full moon was kind of a shock, but in retrospect made a lot of sense, considering you always thought Carmilla and Danny hated each other a little too much for it to just be unfriendly competition for your affections. Anyway, once you’d gotten over the initial shock that your roommate happened to be a bloodsucking member of the undead, discovering that your previous almost-girlfriend’s “highly exclusive sorority” was actually a cover for a wolf pack was a breeze – when you realise that even Danny can’t reach high enough above the bathroom door to hang the lights so they’re not squint.

Since Carmilla got into an argument with the sentient one of the two chairs in your room, sufficiently pissing it off enough that it walked out last week, and your desk chair isn’t exactly known for its reliability at not rolling around by itself and you don’t particularly feel like risking breaking your neck by standing on it, you’re not entirely sure how you’re going to reach. After some deliberating, you scramble your way onto Danny shoulders, praying that she doesn’t drop you because the ground seems  _very_  far away, and start carefully hammering a nail into the wall to hang the lights on.

Neither of you notice Carmilla materialising into the room in a puff of unimpressed black smoke, but you both scream like the resident banshee soprano of the Glee Club when she asks if she’s interrupting some kind of strange Amazonian mating ritual, and you nearly topple off Danny’s shoulders in surprise.

“Where the hell did you come from?” You splutter in surprise, staring at the still locked door. You even remembered to shut the window so Carmilla couldn’t climb up the tree outside and leap through the window in her cat form, as she’s so fond of doing.

“The door was locked, so I smoked my way in,” she says by way of explanation, sneering at the miniature brightly coloured tree you’ve placed on your desk, before opening the fridge and yanking out a container of o-negative.

Danny puts you down after you quickly hang the remaining section of wire up, and you watch Carmilla suspiciously as she pours some blood into a glass. You wouldn’t put it past her to try and destroy the decorations the second your back is turned.

“Yeah, it was locked for a reason,” you huff, going back to rummaging through the box of decorations once you’re relatively sure Carmilla isn’t going to try and set your tree on fire.

Danny’s still looking between the locked door and Carmilla with a bewildered look on her face. “Since when can you turn into a cloud of smoke?” She asks in utter confusion, like it’s the most bizarre thing to ever happen at Silas.

Carmilla fixes her with an unimpressed look once she’s settled on her bed. “You turn into an oversized dachshund every full moon and spend the night running around the woods and mauling innocent little bunny rabbits, but the fact I can turn into a cloud of smoke is something you’re having difficulty wrapping your fire hydrant of a head around?”

“No, but I thought you could only shift into a cat?”

“Luckily for me, my superior vampiric genetic makeup gives me the luxury of being able to shapeshift into more than one creature, or state of matter,” Carmilla smirks smugly at Danny, then looks horrified when the stuffed snowman you take out of a box starts singing a tinny rendition of Jingle Bells when you press a button on its stomach.

“Laura, it hasn’t even been December for a full twenty four hours yet,” she deadpans, looking pained when the box of decorations reveals the stuffed snowman has a stuffed reindeer friend.

“And?” You reply, setting the snowman down on the shelf above Carmilla’s bed and smirking gleefully at her when she glowers at it in contempt. “You should be glad I refrained from doing this the day after Halloween.”

“Terribly sorry that my mother trying to kill us stalled your plans of turning our room into a winter wonderland.”

Carmilla continues making snarky comments about  _the ridiculous frivolity you humans find in this stupid holiday_  as you hang a wreath up on the outside of your door, and Danny stays strangely quiet the whole time, watching you both with an unreadable expression on her face. Carmilla doesn’t even bother to acknowledge her presence until Danny comes over to help you pack away the unused lights once you’re finished, and your hands accidentally brush when you both reach for the same clump of tangled wires.

Danny and Carmilla are hardly friends, if anything they’re  _mandatory acquaintances_ , but they’ve been marginally more civil to each other since the battle against the Dean, so you’re slightly surprised when Carmilla coldly snaps, “If you’re done decorating, don’t you have somewhere to be, Clifford? Other dwarves to help reach the top shelf, brainless Zetas to flirt with, some poor defenseless cute animals to maim?” at Danny without even bothering to look up from her book.

You glare at Carmilla, about to launch into a (probably ineffective) lecture about being rude to your friends, when Danny looks at her phone and swears under her breath. “Dammit. Much as I hate to admit it, Dead Girl’s actually right, I was supposed to be at a pack meeting five minutes ago. See you later Laura.” And then she’s dashing out of the room in a blur of red hair, and you’re left alone with a grumpier-than-usual Carmilla. You just attribute her sudden bad mood to how festive your room now looks, and the incoming lecture she knows you’re about to unleash on her.

(Two days later you come back after class to discover a giant black cat sitting on your bed, getting fur all over your newly washed sheets – your yellow pillow is safely on Carmilla’s bed, of course – and using the snowman as a chew toy. The reindeer is nowhere to be found, and Carmilla refuses to tell you what exact certain doom has befallen it, but the lights, the wreath and your little tree thankfully remain intact.)

/

The first time you’d convinced Carmilla to come along with you to one of your, Perry and Lafontaine’s weekly coffee dates at the Starbucks in town, it was only because Danny was unavailable and you didn’t particularly feel like being an awkward third wheel when the two of them inevitably forgot you were there and started gazing lovingly at each other across the table.

The second time she comes with you, she does so willingly. Which normally would surprise you, and probably make you suspicious of what she was up to, but that was before Carmilla discovered she actually didn’t mind spending time with  _gingers one and two of the dimwit squad_.

It’s a little dramatic that it took the all-out snowball war that had erupted between the Summer Society and the Zetas yesterday for Carmilla and Lafontaine to start getting on, but if they became friends by ganging up on Kirsch and pelting him with snowballs until he surrendered, you didn’t plan on standing in their way. Mostly because you already did try to stand in their way when you attempted to save Kirsch, and Carmilla promptly tackled you to the ground and held you down while Lafontaine shoved snow down the back of your jacket.

You’re still not entirely sure who actually threw the first snowball, or when the entire Summer Society and Zeta frat house arrived in the quad, but when you heard Danny let out a surprised oof, and turned round to see her blinking and brushing snow out of her face, you had about five seconds to dive for cover behind the snowman Carmilla was jamming a hat onto before snowballs started flying in all directions.

It’s now Sunday, and you’ve reluctantly forgiven Carmilla and Lafontaine for assaulting you with your body weight in snow – Lafontaine simply because you’re impressed they managed to smack Carmilla in the face with a snowball and live to tell the tale, and Carmilla because she’s just set down the most delicious looking mug of hot chocolate you’ve ever seen in front of you.

“I didn’t know Starbucks sold marshmallows,” Lafontaine says, looking enviously at the drink before staring at Carmilla. “Is that even on the menu, or did you scare the barista?”

“I may have suggested a few alterations to a regular hot chocolate,” Carmilla replies to Lafontaine’s query. You laugh, taking a massive gulp of the drink and immediately deciding that Carmilla scaring baristas is an acceptable use of her vampiric powers, and that all future Starbucks trips must involve this drink.

At some point in the conversation, Perry mentions the week she spent in Düsseldorf with her family the summer before the semester started, and Carmilla finally shows some interest.

“You’re from Germany?” She asks, and Perry nods, explaining that she spent half her summer in Frankfurt with her family, visiting Düsseldorf for a week, and the other half in Strasbourg with Lafontaine and their family.

Carmilla launches into a story about two weeks she spent in Berlin in June, which eventually devolves into Perry and Carmilla speaking rapid-fire German at each other.

Lafontaine stares at you in bemusement, and you shrug. You’re slightly surprised Carmilla’s bothering to make such an effort, but you’re certainly not going to stop her.

You watch Carmilla chattering away with what’s probably an extremely dopey smile on your face, but it’s rare that you get to see her like this, excited and animated and laughing, and even rarer still that someone who isn’t you gets to see it, and you’re suddenly hit with how glad you are that you chose to stay at Silas.

After Betty announced she was leaving for Princeton, you’d definitely given some thought to transferring to a more… normal university, since becoming a pawn in a centuries old plot of kidnapping unsuspecting girls wasn’t exactly what you’d envisioned when you received your acceptance letter. Although, you muse, in the grand bizarre scheme of things, your roommate turning out to be a vampire ranks pretty low down on the list of weird things to happen at Silas.

Eventually though, you’d decided to stay, even though your Dad asked at least sixty times during a Skype call on Thanksgiving if you were absolutely completely one hundred per cent positively sure you didn’t want to transfer to the University of Toronto so you’d be closer to home. Silas is actually a good university, and despite the daily insanity that occurs on campus, you like it. And the new Dean of Students hasn’t tried to kill you yet, which is always a good sign.

Also, you have money placed in the campus-wide bet of what exactly inhabits the lake (it’s clearly a selkie, despite Carmilla’s objections that it’s a kelpie. Lafontaine points out that Austria is nowhere near Scotland, and therefore you’re both wrong and it’s  _obviously_  a baby hydra) where the Dean’s house used to be, so you’re kind of obligated to stay.

Plus there’s the whole  _do I actually have a thing for Carmilla or am I just getting confused by my own feelings_  situation that you should maybe start giving some thought to. And its sister situation of  _does Carmilla actually have a thing for me or is she just flirting for the sake of flirting_.

Sure there were a lot of moments during the missing girls phase where you’re almost sure she was about to kiss you, or she made some comment that sounded a lot like she cared, and she did retrieve a sword from a thousand feet below sea level and then used it kill her own demonic mother for you. But on the other hand, you haven’t forgotten about her endless rotation of “study buddies” from the early stages of your cohabitation, or the heartbroken look on her face when she saw Ell just before plunging the Blade of Hastur into the centre of the light.

(She vanished without a trace for four days after the Dean died, before she came back, mumbled something about having to bury her mother – you doubt you’ll ever understand the complexity of their relationship, horrifyingly messed up as it was – and then slept for the next forty eight hours straight. It took her another few days before she started willingly talking to you again.)

You’re not sure why she’s even bothering to stay at Silas. Now that her mother is gone, really she can do whatever she wants, go wherever she wants, but not even a risen-again-and-out-for-your-blood Dean would get you to admit that you’re glad she stayed.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean you  _like_  Carmilla, right? She’s still an awful roommate, she’s still annoying and abrasive and has no regard for anyone except herself, and you’re mildly concerned you’re going to break your neck tripping over her clothes she still doesn’t pick up off the floor, and you still yell at her when she “forgets” to clean her hair out of the shower drain, so really, nothing has changed. Except now you trust her not to turn you into a three-course meal in your sleep. And you’re friends.  _Just_  friends.

/

At some point Carmilla excuses herself to go to the bathroom, and Lafontaine stares intently at her retreating back until the door swings shut behind her, which you find a little odd even for them, until- “So, are we ever going to discuss the short, obviously-very-infatuated elephant in the room?”

You nearly choke on a marshmallow at the question. Both redheads are staring at you, and you shift uncomfortably under their dual piercing gazes. You have a vague idea of what they’re getting at, but you decide to play dumb and stall in the hopes of Carmilla returning quickly and therefore shutting them both up. “Uh, what?”

“Your massive, giant, so-obvious-it-can-be-seen-from-space crush on Fangs, what else?”

Well, Lafontaine certainly gets straight to the point.

“I, uh, what are you- I don’t- Carmilla and I are just- Uh,“ You babble inanely, before fixing them both with what you hope is a convincing stare. “That’s ridiculous, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It’s just as bad, if not worse, a denial of your crush as when Lafontaine called you crushes-on-vampires. They agree, if the look on their face is any indication.

“Dude, sometimes you stare at her like you want to kiss her.”

“I do not!” You probably do.

“Okay fine, you don’t stare at her like that  _all_  the time,” Lafontaine concedes, and you smile smugly at them. “The rest of the time you stare at her like you’re two seconds away from tearing her clothes off.”

You groan, Lafontaine laughs, and you turn to Perry with a pleading expression. “I don’t look at her like that, do I?”

“Well I wouldn’t have put it quite so crudely,” she starts, trying to hide a smile behind her mug.

“And how would you put it then?” You ask, not entirely sure if you want to hear the answer.

Perry puts the mug down, and looks thoughtful for a second. “Whenever I see you looking at her, I imagine that a Taylor Swift song is playing in your head.”

“Oh my God,” you groan, and hide your rapidly reddening face with your hands. If anything that’s even worse than Lafontaine’s comment.

“Not one of her songs about an ex-boyfriend of course, one of the sweet romantic ones, like Sparks Fly, or Starlight, or Ours, or You Belong-“

“Per, please stop talking,” you cut her off before she can finish that last song title, and it’s muffled by your hands but Perry probably can’t actually hear you anyway over Lafontaine’s laughter, and you kind of want to sink into the sofa and disappear until your face has returned to a normal temperature.

Carmilla chooses that exact moment to come breezing back over to your table, and you know Lafontaine catches your eyes drifting to her ass when she has to shuffle past you to get to her seat by the window, before flopping down into it ungracefully and raising an eyebrow at Lafontaine’s badly concealed smirk.

You fix them both with a look that you hope conveys a message of  _breathe a word of this to anyone especially Carmilla and I will serve you both on a silver platter to her for dinner_.

Both of them dutifully shut up, and Perry distracts Carmilla from your nervous fidgeting by launching into another tale of Düsseldorf.

It’s not until you’re walking back to campus in the snow, Lafontaine and Perry holding hands a few metres in front of you, while you’re wishing you were holding Carmilla’s hand, that you realise this is probably the longest Carmilla has gone without insulting either of them. Well. Insulting them too much.

“You know,” you start, trying to hide a smile. “You can admit that you like spending time with them.” Carmilla rolls her eyes. “It’s okay, I won’t blab your big secret. I know you have a reputation to uphold.”

“They’re growing on me, I suppose,” Carmilla grumbles reluctantly, and you beam at her until she adds on, “Like a pair of ginger tumours. Or something grown by the Alchemy Club.”

/

Somehow, you manage to talk Carmilla into agreeing to help with what Lafontaine has dubbed The Great Festive Styrian Bake Off, with minimal complaining. You get into a twenty minute heated argument over what exactly you’re going to bake, and the questionable morality of using blood in the recipes –  _I’m not the only vampire at this school you know, don’t be so speciesist_  – before you eventually settle on gingerbread cookies. They’re festive, relatively easy to make, and provided you follow the exact recipe and don’t use any of the bags of fluorescent green flour that keep mysteriously appearing in the kitchen, they shouldn’t come to life at any point.

Carmilla offers to help carry the ingredients through to the kitchen area, which leaves you momentarily stunned, before you watch her pick up the smallest box of icing sugar and then breeze out of the room, leaving you to carry the rest. You roll your eyes, because for someone who’s over three hundred years old, she’s remarkably good at acting like a child, before following her down the hall.

Perry appears out of nowhere as you’re unloading the ingredients onto the countertop that Carmilla has scared two terrified looking freshmen away from and beams at you both, welcoming you to  _Silas’ first annual Christmas bake off_ , explaining that you have until 6pm to finish baking, before the judging begins at 6.30pm, and the winning team will receive a €250 prize.

In retrospect, after being a first hand witness to the months of abuse the poor bathroom has been on the receiving end of, you really should have known letting Carmilla loose in the kitchen was a terrible idea, because your attempt at baking is truly disastrous.

(Although in Carmilla’s defense, the grand majority of things going wrong is your fault. But in  _your_  defense, you wouldn’t have made such a huge mess if Carmilla wasn’t so damn distracting.)

You end up spilling flour everywhere when you get distracted by Carmilla standing a lot closer than you think is strictly necessary to watch you measure it out into the mixing bowl. Carmilla “accidentally” drops the full bag of sugar all over the floor. You’re too busy surreptitiously watching Carmilla suck sugar off her fingers that you don’t realise you’ve put in double the amount of ginger the recipe suggests until it’s too late, which turns your gingerbread dough into a much brighter shade of orange than the picture in the book. Carmilla knocks a spoon off the counter and onto the floor, and you’re too preoccupied with staring at her ass when she bends over to pick it up that the first tablespoon of syrup ends up in the open tub of butter instead of the mixing bowl. Carmilla gleefully makes as many suggestive comments as she can about licking out bowls, but fails to notice the part of the counter she’s leaning against is covered with raw egg that, inevitably, you spilled earlier and forgot to clean up, until it’s all over the left sleeve of her shirt.

Carmilla grumpily rips her shirt off when she finally notices the egg all over it, leaving her in only an extremely tight tank top, and you tell yourself to stop leering at the muscles in her arms, because dammit you are  _not_  a hormonal teenager anymore. You have self-control. You’re not above admitting to yourself that Carmilla is annoyingly gorgeous, or that you might (just  _might_ ) be ludicrously attracted to her, but that doesn’t mean you’re in danger of losing control and throwing yourself at her just because of the top she’s wearing.

This is all Lafontaine’s fault, you decide. If they hadn’t brought up your apparently obvious crush on your undead, unhygienic, unfairly attractive roommate, then you wouldn’t be having this internal crisis right now. You’ve seen Carmilla parading around the dorm room in only her underwear hundreds of times by now and that never made you feel like this, like the temperature in the room has gone up by a degree or twenty, so you’re not sure why Carmilla now, fully clothed and with a smear of butter on her face is making you wish her hands weren’t occupied with a cookie cutter and were instead doing indecent things to your body.

Carmilla howls with laughter at the look of dismay on your face when you take the tray out of the oven ten minutes later to discover that not only have half of the cookies burned, but bad placement has also resulted in two of them merging together into one giant, deformed, two headed gingerbread man.

You decorate the more edible looking cookies with stars and Christmas trees and other festive things, while Carmilla draws boobs and anatomically incorrect (you hope) penises onto the remaining ones, and despite yourself you laugh when Carmilla decorates the two headed gingerbread man with orange icing, as what is clearly supposed to be Perry and Lafontaine.

The cookies – at least the ones you were responsible for icing – don’t actually look too horrible, but your chances of winning the bake off might be slightly decreased due to the fact someone is more likely to chip a tooth on the rock hard cookies than enjoy them.

“We really need to clean this up before Perry gets back, if she sees this she’ll probably have an aneurysm,” you say, surveying the bombsite in front of you, before adding that no, setting the entire countertop on fire is not an acceptable method of cleaning, before Carmilla can even open her mouth.

Carmilla lasts a full minute of helping you clean up the disaster area with no complaining (which is an entire sixty seconds more than you thought she’d last) before she apparently decides it’ll be more fun to ping dollops of icing at you. Unfortunately, her aim is almost perfect, and the second one hits you right in the face.

“Seriously?” You groan, wiping at your face with a tissue and ignoring her giggling like a five year old. “How old are you again?”

After three more attacks of incoming icing you decide to get revenge, and pause your own cleaning to throw a spoonful of syrup at her. It splatters all over her cheek, and she looks stunned momentarily, before she gleefully flings more icing at you, and before you know it you’re chasing each other around the counter, hurling various ingredients at each other. Carmilla smears butter all over your face, and you upend the remains of the bag of sugar on her head. She throws syrup at you, and it lands on the top of your chest, before dripping down into your shirt and your bra, so you grab two as much icing as you can with your hands and get it all over her hair, mussing it up until it’s sticking in all directions.

The impromptu food fight comes to an abrupt end when Carmilla gets her arm around your waist and pins you against the counter with her hips and her irritatingly convenient super strength – “ _Carmilla! That’s not fair!” “Life isn’t fair, cutie.”_  – immobilising you so she can throw a cloud of flour right in your face.

It isn’t until you stop coughing and can actually see again that you realise how close Carmilla is.

The entire front of her body is pressing against the back of yours, her hips against your ass and her chest against your back so tightly that you can feel her faint heartbeat. Her arm is still wrapped around your waist, and you can feel your own heart thump against your ribs when the tips of her fingers brush against the tiny patch of skin between the bottom of your shirt and the top of your pants.

Your body flushes when you turn your head to glare at her and you realise her face is inches away from yours. Minus the times she bit you after Will freed her and the five second waltz while Perry napped two feet away on your bed, this is the closest you’ve ever been to her, and she’s not subtle at all – if she’s even trying to be – when her eyes drop to stare at your lips, and how the  _hell_  does she still manage to look so attractive covered in butter and sugar and flour?

The moment is fortunately (unfortunately?) broken when the door flies open and Perry comes marching in, screeching to a halt and staring in abject horror at the havoc you and Carmilla have wreaked upon the kitchen.

You’ve never been so glad for being interrupted (and you weren’t even in your dorm room) because you were possibly, just maybe, entertaining the idea of leaning forward and kissing Carmilla.  _Carmilla._  Your stubborn, broody,  _vampire_ roommate. The one you only  _maybe_  have any kind of romantic notions about at all. That roommate. Maybe the ginger powder was laced with something.

/

Turns out the only thing Perry takes more seriously than the annual bake off is the annual Christmas movie marathon being held in the common room the following night, and she has enlisted yours and Lafontaine’s help in picking out movies.

“A Christmas Story?”

“No.”

“How The Grinch Stole Christmas?”

“Animated version or Jim Carrey version?”

“Jim Carrey version.”

“Yes.”

“Elf?”

“No,” you say at the same time Lafontaine says, “yes.”

You glare at each other until Perry places the Elf dvd onto the just-newly-started  _maybe_  pile.

Carmilla shows up midway through a heated debate over whether The Nightmare Before Christmas really counts as a Christmas movie and not a Halloween one, grunts what is possibly a hello at the three of you, before throwing herself onto her bed dramatically and immediately sticking her nose in a book.

The Nightmare Before Christmas eventually joins Elf in the maybe pile, Bad Santa, Christmas With The Kranks and Four Christmases go into the no pile, and Love Actually makes its way into the coveted yes pile.

Carmilla snorts when you suggest The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol, and you glare at her before pointing out that if she’s not going to be attending the movie night then she’s not allowed an opinion on what movies are shown.

“Whoever said I wasn’t going to come, cupcake?” Your mind briefly nosedives into the gutter at her comment combined with the image that pops into your head of the smirk you  _know_ is on her irritatingly smug face concealed by her book, before you smile like an idiot at the fact she’s going to be there. Perry is chattering away to herself about Miracle on 34th Street being an obvious choice, but Lafontaine is watching you with an amused smile when you eventually drag your gaze away from Carmilla. You feel a blush start creeping its way across your face when they smirk and waggle their eyebrows at you, and you suddenly find the dvd box for Die Hard extremely interesting.

After five minutes of persistent badgering from Perry, Carmilla’s suggestions for possible movie selections consist of a trio of charming sounding movies: Black Christmas, Silent Night Deadly Night, and Santa’s Slay. You and Perry instantly veto her once you’ve looked up their synopses on IMDB. She huffs, and goes back to her book, only piping up to offer that It’s A Wonderful Life  _doesn’t make me want to throw up and I can probably force myself to sit through it if I absolutely have to_.

It’s as much of a confirmation as you expect she’ll offer.

/

There are more people than you expected there to be already dotted around the common room when you and Carmilla arrive. There’s an ominous humming emanating from the group of bean bags the Glee Club have commandeered, and you spy Danny looking cosy with Kirsch on one of the sofas near the back of the room. Lafontaine is taking up an entire sofa by themself, and they wave you over when they catch sight of you.

“This is the only piece of furniture in this entire room that doesn’t have a history of moving by itself, and has no dubious stains on it,” they say by way of greeting, before patting the cushion and inviting you to sit down.

Carmilla plops down on the other end of the sofa, the enormous bowl of popcorn she’s acquired from somewhere taking up her entire lap, and you sit in between them, trying not to think about how close Carmilla is, and how much closer she’s going to be when Perry joins them. The sofa isn’t  _that_ big. Carmilla hasn’t brought up the bake off’s  _so-we-sort-of-maybe-almost-could’ve-kissed_  incident since it happened last week, and you certainly don’t plan to, but it’s kind of difficult  _not_  to think about it when Carmilla’s close enough that all you can smell is her perfume, so you try and distract yourself by stealing some of the popcorn.

“Where’s Tweedledee?” Carmilla asks through a mouthful of popcorn.

“Practicing her speech,” Lafontaine replies in a tone of voice that suggests they wish they were joking, but are in fact sadly telling the absolute truth, before their eyebrows furrow and they glare at Carmilla. “Hold on, are you implying I’m Tweedledum?”

You’re saved from being the unwilling mediator in the inevitable war of mocking nicknames that this can and will descend into by Perry appearing out of nowhere and leaping up onto a stool at the front of the room, clapping her hands together loudly. She rattles off a short speech about keeping the holiday spirit, and the importance of bonding with fellow dorm members, before clambering down from the stool and skipping over to the large projector the Computing Club has generously donated for the night.

The first movie is How The Grinch Stole Christmas, and once Perry has joined the three of you on the sofa, predictably cuddling up to Lafontaine, you’re fully prepared to start tuning out Carmilla’s inevitable sarcastic commentary and mildly inappropriate comments of  _Cindy Lou got hot, who woulda known it then_. When ten minutes have passed and Carmilla hasn’t made a peep, you turn to look at her, expecting her to be asleep, or to be engrossed in whatever book she’s smuggled in, but she’s watching the Whos down in Whoville in rapt attention.

There’s even the ghost of a smile on her lips. You stare at her.

“I completely understand if you’d rather watch me for the next hour and a half instead of the movie, sweetheart,” Carmilla whispers, her gaze moving from the wall onto you. “But that seems more like the kind of activity that could be better appreciated when we’re not in a room full of other people.”

You ignore the shiver that shoots down your spine at her low voice and the seductive smirk that’s now aimed towards you, and busy your hands with grabbing some popcorn so they don’t do something stupid like grab Carmilla.

“I just didn’t take you for the Dr. Seuss kind of person.”

“I have a very deep connection with The Grinch,” she deadpans.

You snort, because of course she does.

/

The last part of the movie you remember clearly is The Grinch reading the phonebook and shouting out the Whos that he hated, in alphabetical order, and when you open your eyes and blink sleepily at the screen, there’s a completely different movie playing. It’s in black and white, and when James Stewart appears on the screen you realise The Grinch has changed to It’s A Wonderful Life.

You’ve seen the movie a million times already, so you’re considering just going back to sleep when the source of warmth pressed against you shifts slightly, and you realise that the soft, comfy mass you’re using as a pillow is Carmilla. You freeze, your gaze dropping down from the screen to your lap, and you’re met with the sight of pale skin clad in irritatingly attractive thigh high socks and seriously, who the hell still wears shorts in  _Decembe_ r?

Heat shoots through you when you notice that your fingertips are mere millimetres away from the part of her thigh not covered by her shorts or socks, your mind immediately recalling all the times you’ve daydreamed about your hands on her bare skin. You squeeze your eyes shut, trying not to think about that, and instead wondering what your best course of action that has the least amount of potential embarrassment is.

You’re about to just sit up, fake a yawn and pray that Carmilla never ever mentions this ever again, when it finally registers that the warm weight around your shoulders is Carmilla’s arm, and that not only are  _you_  cuddled up to her, but also that she’s apparently a willing participant in this. Her fingers are gently brushing along your upper arm, left bare by your tshirt, so you know she’s awake, and it’s not like you could have dragged her arm around your shoulders while you were sleeping, so she must have consciously wrapped her arm around you after you slumped against her.

This isn’t really helping with your claims of not having a crush on Carmilla.

You groan internally when you realise there’s an almost hundred per cent chance Lafontaine and Perry are also still awake, and you’re probably going to have to put up with endless teasing from the former about falling asleep on your crush the second said crush isn’t around.

You should probably move and put at least a bit of space between you and Carmilla if you don’t want Lafontaine mocking you until next Christmas, but you’re still half asleep, and Carmilla is soft and warm and smells good and  _just friends_ cuddle all the time (don’t they?) and clearly Carmilla doesn’t have a problem being used as a pillow since she hasn’t unceremoniously shoved you off her – yet – so you throw caution to the wind and snuggle into her further.

She tenses for a second, and then rests her cheek against the top of your head and you swear you feel her smiling.

(The next time you wake up you’re in your bed in your dorm room. The lights are off and Carmilla is presumably out doing her undead creature of the night stuff, but there’s a Tardis-ful of still-warm cocoa sitting on your desk, sitting on top of a note that has _should cut back on your cookie intake sweetheart, wouldn’t want the ancient old vampire to throw out her back carrying you around would you?_ scribbled in Carmilla’s loopy handwriting.)

/

“You know, I didn’t think it was possible, but this is even more humiliating than when you tied me up because you thought I was the one kidnapping the girls.”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little overdramatic?”

“I am never going to forgive you for this.”

“Ok.”

“I mean it. Better tell Furface and her squad of lupine psychos to stock up on stakes because none of you are safe once I escape from this evil place.”

“I believe you, now let go of the side, Carm,” you say, and hold your glove-covered hands out towards her. “You can hold onto me, I won’t let you fall.”

“Better idea, how about I stay here and hold onto the railing, that way I definitely won’t fall.”

Lafontaine and Perry appear on the ice next to you before you can  come up with something more convincing, and Carmilla immediately fixes a pleading look on Perry. “You’re the only one that appears to have half a brain cell and an ounce of compassion between the three of you, please save me. Or stake me. Or set me on fire. Any option would be preferable to this seemingly never ending hell they’re putting me through.”

“Who doesn’t know how to ice skate?” Lafontaine laughs, ignoring Perry when she nudges them. “You’re like three centuries old, you’ve had plenty time to practice. Or was ice skating far too beneath the grand and royal Countess Karnstein?”

Carmilla lets go of the railing to flip them off, and promptly falls over.

Lafontaine and Perry abandon you again, skating off around the rink together, leaving you to help Carmilla to her feet, trying to hold back a laugh when she flails her arms around as she tries to keep her balance.

Taking the first opportunity of Carmilla not clinging onto the railing you’ve had since you dragged her onto the ice ten minute ago, you grab onto her hands, and start inching backwards, tugging Carmilla along with you until you’re both gliding along the ice at a snail’s pace.

“See, this isn’t so bad, is it?” You say, and laugh when Carmilla grumbles  _you said we were going Christmas shopping, I‘m never believing a word you say ever again_  under her breath.

“This is against the laws of physics or something,” Carmilla complains, and you’re mildly concerned she might accidentally break your hands with the vice like grip she has on them. “It takes a special kind of idiot to look at a patch of ice, slippery fucking ice, and think ‘Oh, I have a great idea, what if I attached razor blades to my shoes and tried to move across this ice?’ instead of doing what any normal person with an iota of sense would do, which is walk in the opposite direction away from the slippery fucking ice.”

You let go of Carmilla’s hands when she manages to make a full lap around the rink without wobbling, however she lasts less than five seconds on her own before her arms start waving around and her body pitches forward to land in a heap at your feet.

“How the frilly fuck,” Carmilla grits out from between her clenched teeth. “Are you managing to stay upright on those blasted shoes?”

You bite your tongue to try and subdue the laugh that threatens to bubble out, before reaching out your hand and helping Carmilla to her feet. Again.

“I’m Canadian, most of us learn to skate before we learn to walk.”

“Aren’t Canadians supposed to be nice? Why are you putting me through this torture?” Carmilla’s glare doesn’t really have the desired effect when she clings onto your arm with both hands and looks frightened when you try to move away.

“I used to be nice. I think my hellish roommate has rubbed off on me.”

You turn the same colour as the red bobble hat on Carmilla’s head when the vampire shoots those damn seduction eyes at you, smirks, and says, “There are much more enjoyable ways I could rub off on you, cutie.”

You open your mouth to stutter out God knows what, inevitably something stupid and flustered and with very little resemblance to the English language, but are thankfully saved from completely embarrassing yourself when Perry and Lafontaine skate to a halt next to you.

“Oh excellent,” Carmilla huffs, either not noticing or just ignoring the obvious effect her words are having on you. “You’re back to witness more of my utter humiliation.”

“Actually, we came to save you,” Lafontaine says, before looking questioningly at your still flushed face.

“Laura, maybe you could just leave Carmilla at the side and come join us,” Perry says, and Carmilla looks like she might hug her. “I don’t think she’s really a fan of ice skating.”

You think Carmilla mutters  _oh I haven’t had this much fun since I got murdered_  under her breath but you choose to ignore her.

You and Lafontaine watch in amusement as Perry half-leads, half-carries Carmilla back to the side of the rink, where she manages not to fall as she stops clinging onto Perry’s arm in favour of grabbing the railing in what looks to be a vicious death grip.

The three of you skate around for a bit longer, until Perry suggests going for coffee (or in your case hot chocolate) since it’s slightly unethical to leave Carmilla standing around in the cold. Lafontaine and Perry go off towards the entrance, and you skate over to retrieve Carmilla, where she’s still holding onto the railing, looking bored and glaring menacingly at anyone who skates too close to her.

“Are we finally leaving? Thank God, I’m freezing my fangs off here,” Carmilla gripes, taking your proffered hand anyway and clutching it tightly. “I thought I would never escape this horrific place. You people are sadists. And masochists.”

She continues grumbling away next to you while you try to focus on anything other than the fact you’re skating along while holding Carmilla’s hand, and that it feels like a distinctly couple-y thing to do. You look up towards the entrance to the rink and Lafontaine is standing there making kissy faces at you, and you nearly lose your balance. Carmilla’s arm shoots out to grab you around the waist so you don’t faceplant inelegantly onto the ice, somehow managing not to fall over herself, and when you regain your balance she looks incredibly pleased.

“I thought it was supposed to be me that couldn’t stay upright for longer than three seconds on these ridiculous skates.”

“You know I could just leave you here,” you point out, and it’s hilarious how fast the smug expression is wiped off her face.

“I swear to God Hollis, if you let go of me-“

“You’ll fall over, complain, and glare at me until I help you up,” you interrupt her, laughing at the murderous look she sends your way. “The big bad bloodthirsty vampire act isn’t quite as threatening out here.”

“Shut up.”

“Make me,” you shoot back without thinking. Which is definitely the wrong thing to say, since in a game of flirting and seduction eyes you are horribly outmatched. A point Carmilla proves when she smirks, predictably, and her hand slides an inch or two lower where it’s still holding onto your waist.

“You do realise what ‘make me’ is usually synonymous with, don’t you sweetheart?”

Logically, you know the temperature is below freezing, but everything suddenly feels far too warm. Carmilla is staring at your lips, and she’s biting her own bottom one, and her arm is still around your waist, and she’s so close to you that you’d barely need to lean forward to be kissing her.

“Hey lovebirds!” Lafontaine interrupts your staring match extremely loudly, and you nearly fall over again. “Can you continue gazing at each other in Starbucks where it isn’t like negative fifty?”

You make a particularly undignified squeaking noise, and Carmilla (unfortunately) lets go of your waist. “Ginger Number One has a point, aren’t you cold? Your cheeks are all red,” Carmilla points out the obvious, smirking like she knows your flushed face has precisely zero to do with the temperature, before holding up your still joined hands and gesturing towards the entrance. “After you, creampuff.”

“What is it with you and pastry based nicknames?” You wonder aloud, not really expecting an answer.

Carmilla gives you a look as if the answer should be blatantly obvious. “Cause if I called you fruit based nicknames it’d just sound weird, wouldn’t it grapefruit?”

/

There’s a stall in the middle of the town square that’s selling Christmas hats and sweaters that Lafontaine spots just as you’re exiting Starbucks, dragging you all over to it. Carmilla stands a few feet behind you looking bored and examining her nails, then shoots daggers at you when you hold a blue sweater with a snowman on it up to her to try and decide which size of sweater Carmilla  _is_ going to buy.

“Haven’t you already tortured me enough today?”

“Don’t be such a Scrooge,” Lafontaine says from where they’re examining a bright pink sweater with what looks like a fat version of Olaf from Frozen on it.

Carmilla huffs and rolls her eyes dramatically and complains the entire time, but doesn’t actually stop you from holding up various sweaters against her, eventually deciding on a red one covered in snowflakes, until you try to hand the cashier your money.

You turn around to tell her the sweater is non-negotiable, and if she makes a fuss you’ll replace her entire book collection with multiple copies of the Twilight series, but the words catch in your throat when you see her handing her own money over.

“Wouldn’t want you to waste this much money on something that’s probably going to ‘mysteriously’ vanish on December 26th anyway,” she grumbles without looking at you.

Behind you, where they’re currently paying for matching green reindeer sweaters for them and Perry, Lafontaine makes the noise of a whip cracking, and you decide it’s probably time to go back to campus before Carmilla actually kills someone.

/

On December 12th, Carmilla’s just waking up when you get back to your dorm room after your morning classes and then lunch with Kirsch. She blinks sleepily at you from under her mountain of blankets as you move around the room stuffing various books into your bag, and you’re about to leave for your 3pm Lit class when she eventually pipes up. “So, uh, there’s a big Christmas tree lighting in the town square this evening. Figure that’s the kind of festive shit you and your merry band of gingers might be interested in.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“No,” she snaps immediately, and you raise an eyebrow at her.

“Okay, fine, maybe it is. Whatever. I mean, it sounds like a complete waste of time, but I can think of worse ways to waste my evening,” she relents grumpily, burrowing further under the blankets. “Plus you’ve been grating on my nerves all week freaking out about this paper you’re about to go hand in, so maybe, you, I don’t know, might need something to cheer you up after.”

She’s hiding her face by shoving it into the yellow pillow that she liberated from you probably the second you were out the door this morning, and you’re pretty sure if vampires could blush she’d be slightly pink at this point.

Stuffing the aforementioned paper into your bag and slinging it over your shoulder, you turn to start walking towards the door.

“Wow Carm, after that lovely invitation, how could I possibly say no? What time does it start?”

Carmilla grunts what sounds like 8pm, and you pause by her bed to reach down and ruffle her hair, leaping backwards when she swipes her hand at you like an animal’s paw. “See you then, sleepyhead.”

/

“Dude, it’s totally a date.”

“It is  _not_  a date.”

“Sure it isn’t. You really want us gatecrashing your romantic evening with your pulse-challenged crush?”

“Um, if it was a date, why would she have suggested you two come with us? She’s the one that invited you, therefore, not a date,” you point out, before quickly adding on, “And I do not have a crush on her!”

You’ve sort of given up on trying to sound convincing with that last comment. It’s certainly not working on  _you_  anymore.

“Maybe it’s a group date. Were they popular in the seventeenth century?”

“Perry,” you glare at the other redhead. “You are not helping.”

“Okay, fine, maybe it’s not a date,” Lafontaine relents, holding up a finger to shut you up when you try to object to the word  _maybe_. “But you totally want it to be one.”

You glare at them and their smug little know-it-all smile, but can’t quite bring yourself to deny it. You hadn’t even thought of it as anything even remotely date-like until Lafontaine had interrupted your much-more-polite-than-Carmilla’s invitation to start gleefully chattering about dates, but now that it’s been mentioned, it’s all you can think about.

“Fine,” you eventually huff, and Lafontaine looks even more delighted. “If I admit that I have a small crush on her, will you stop making fun of me for it?”

“No, probably not,” Lafontaine says at the same time as Perry says, “Of course we will.”

You groan, trying to resist the urge to bang your head off the cafeteria table that you’re sitting at.

“Look, do you want to come with us to the tree lighting or not?” You ask, hoping you can escape them sometime soon.

“Yes, we’d love to,” Perry says before Lafontaine can open their mouth.

“Okay, well we’ll meet you at the south campus entrance at 7:45, gotta go now, see you later,” you babble, picking your bag up and standing up from the table. 

“Oh, hey Laura?” You turn around slowly, wondering if Lafontaine has a genuine question or if they’re just going to make dumb comments about Carmilla again. “If you want us to skedaddle at any point so you can have some alone time with your mistress of the dark-“ 

“Ugh,  _goodbye_  Lafontaine.”

/

Apparently the Christmas tree lighting is a slightly bigger deal than somebody just pressing the on button to a big set of fairy lights. There’s a group of people singing a seemingly never ending version of O Holy Night prior to the tree being lit up, and you shiver from the cold, reaching up and pulling your hat down further over your cold ears. You didn’t realise you would be standing around outside quite this long, and the various cosy cafes around the square are looking more inviting by the second, a good view of the tree be damned.

You would have put on an extra jumper or three before you left, but unfortunately most of your clothes are still dirty since your last attempted trip to the laundry room was cut short when the washing machine seemed to take offence at one of your shirts, and started shouting at you in Polish. You tried taking a leaf out of your thieving roommate’s book and just wearing something of Carmilla’s, but a quick rifle through her side of the wardrobe yielded very little that wasn’t made of lace, see through, ripped, or a combination of the three. You’d settled for pulling on one of her leather jackets you found on the floor over your Christmas sweater, ignoring that it smells like her, and putting your coat on over that, but there’s a wind chill that’s making it feel twenty degrees colder than it actually is.

Perry and Lafontaine are standing to your right, doing their  _staring lovingly at each other_  thing again, and Carmilla is on your left, watching you in amusement as you try to stop shivering and grumble about how long the singing has been going on for.

“Are you cold?” She asks.

“No,” you lie through your chattering teeth, and she laughs. You pout at her, trying not to think about how cute she looks bundled up in her coat and bobble hat and… Yep, that’s your scarf. Of course it is.

All coherent thoughts vacate your mind and you nearly leap six feet in the air when you suddenly feel her front pressing against your back and her arms wrapping around your waist.

“Uh, Carm, what are you-“ you squeak at least two octaves higher than normal.

“You survived my insane mother, don’t want something as lame as simply freezing to death to be the thing that finishes you off, cupcake,” she interrupts, and the shiver that she can probably feel as it shoots down your spine definitely has more to do with her being so close you can feel her breath hit your cheek, and a lot less to do with the cold. “Besides, I’m the one that stole your scarf so it’s kind of my duty to make sure you don’t catch hypothermia and die. Nineteenth century chivalry and all that, old habits die hard.”

She rests her chin on your shoulder, smirks at the probably stupid and dumbfounded expression on your face, and you’re mildly concerned you’re going to faint.

“I- um, thanks,” you stutter. Unsurprisingly, it’s fairly difficult to form semi-coherent sentences when you’re so close to her that you can probably count her eyelashes individually. “You’re surprisingly warm for an undead corpse,” you mutter to try and deflect from the way you snuggle further into her embrace, because she is remarkably cosy for someone who’s technically been dead three centuries, and you hope she just attributes the red colouring your cheeks to the low temperature.

You look around to your right, since Carmilla’s face is extremely close to your left, and catch Lafontaine’s eye. They’re no longer oblivious to anything that isn’t Perry, and now look incredibly amused, making a dramatic show of wrapping their arms around a confused-looking Perry to mimic you and Carmilla. Miraculously they don’t make any kind of stupid comment, although they do start humming an off-key version of All I Want For Christmas Is You, which you glare at them for.

It’s around the moment the tree finally lights up, and a collective _ooh_ rises from the crowd that Carmilla promptly sarcastically mimics, that you realise there is absolutely no going back on your feelings that are apparently a little stronger than just a crush.

You turn your head to tell her off for her usual grumbling, and there’s a split second where you see the adoring – really not a word you ever thought could be applicable to Carmilla, but that’s the only way to describe the look on her face – way she’s smiling at you, before she plasters on a bored expression and pretends to be looking at the tree. The words die in your throat and you don’t say anything.

She’s looked at you with that expression a couple of times already, mostly when she thinks you’re not paying her any attention, and the variety of moments you’ve shared over the past few months play back in your head –  _maybe I don’t feel like sharing you right now, so when you were hitting on me you were really hitting on me, if I was your TA you wouldn’t even have to ask, partners were face to face chest to chest_  – and you’re fairly positive she wouldn’t even need to use her supernatural hearing to be able to hear the way your heart is hammering against your ribs.

Yeah, definitely not just a crush.

/

Perry and Lafontaine decline your offer to go get hot chocolate after the crowd disperses, citing a paper due in tomorrow that Lafontaine hasn’t finished yet, and they traipse off in the direction of campus, holding hands and looking cute, while you and Carmilla head towards Starbucks. Unfortunately not holding hands.

Once you’re inside, Carmilla shoos you away to find seats while she insists on paying for both your drinks, and a voice that sounds suspiciously like Lafontaine starts up a chant of  _it’s a date it’s a date it’s a date_. She asks about what Christmases with your Dad are like, and you start off with the tale of nearly burning your house down because you left the turkey in the oven too long and it ended up catching fire. You figure she’ll appreciate that one, what with her penchant for pyromania.

You keep chattering a mile a minute about trees and lights and presents and hats and you’re only half convinced Carmilla is actually listening to you, but you keep talking so you don’t have to focus on the fact that without Lafontaine and Perry with you, this feels a lot less like two friends having hot chocolate together and a lot more like an actual date.

It also isn’t helping matters that the radio is playing some slow romantic sounding song that’s mentioning  _some mistletoe, a lover’s glow and a table dressed for two_ , and Carmilla is looking at you with that unguarded smile she reserves only for when it’s just you and her.

You make some ridiculous joke about turkeys on sledges, which she laughs at, and you hope like hell she doesn’t hear the way your heart picks up its beating at how happy she looks.

/

“What date are you going home again?” Carmilla asks as you’re leaving Starbucks. It’s snowing lightly again, the lights on the big Christmas tree and the smaller ones strung along the trees lining the square illuminating the snow on the ground and the evening air. Everything looks so pretty and festive you almost forget to answer Carmilla’s question.

“Um, the 20th. My flight leaves at 4pm so I’ll probably be gone by about noon. Maybe earlier depending on how bad the weather is.”

Carmilla makes an unimpressed sounding noise in response, and when you turn to look at her (and to try to gauge if she looks disappointed that you’re leaving) she’s looking disinterestedly towards the big tree and sucking on a candy cane from the packet she bought inside Starbucks.

Blood rushes to your cheeks as you stare, transfixed, at her mouth. It’s infuriating, she doesn’t even  _need_  to eat regular food, and yet she still steals your cookies and your chocolate, swipes the last slice of pizza when you’re not paying attention, and apparently now likes candy canes. The red part is starting to stain her lips darker, and you can’t help but imagine what it would be like to kiss the sticky candy off her mouth. What it would taste like on her lips. What  _she_  would taste like on your lips.

She offers the packet of candy canes towards you when she catches you staring. “Want one?”

 _No, I want to kiss you._  “Uh, no, it’s fine.”

“Laura Hollis turning down sugar? Who the hell are you and what have you done with my bite size roommate?” She replies with a smirk, nudging you with her shoulder before starting to walk away.

You take a moment to attempt to collect yourself before following her, because your  _vampire_  a-bit-more-than-just-a-crush calling you ‘bite size’ is really not helping with the whole not throwing yourself at her thing.

There’s a group of Christmas carolers on the other side of the street currently in the middle of belting out Let It Snow, and you expect Carmilla to go marching straight past them without a second glance, so you end up walking straight into her back when she stops to watch them.

She fails to hide an amused smile at your clumsiness, and you stare at her in disbelief. She’s complained almost every single time you’ve tried to play Christmas music while she’s in the room. The only times she  _hasn’t_  made a fuss about it have been when she’s still asleep.

“First time I heard this song was when Ella Fitzgerald sang it. London sometime in the 60’s,” she mutters by way of explanation. “And it isn’t being butchered too badly here I guess.” Your look of shock morphs into a smug smile, and Carmilla pointedly looks away from you. “Try to contain your excitement darling, it’s the only Christmas song I like.”

The carolers makes their way through Fairytale of New York (which apparently Carmilla also likes, or doesn’t hate enough to make her want to leave, and when the song references Broadway and New York you wonder if she ever got to visit The Met like she wanted before Ell happened) and All I Want For Christmas Is You, (which you like, and spend the duration of the song being acutely aware of how close to you Carmilla is standing) before they start into a song you don’t recognise.

Carmilla doesn’t seem to have any intentions of leaving, so despite how cold it is, you happily stay by her side, watching the way her eyes light up at the music.

The song continues into a cheerful sounding chorus, and when they start singing the words  _merry Christmas darling, look at us you can watch us fall in love again, cause it’s the season for us to be together, us to be together again_ , you idly wonder what the hell you’ve been waiting for.

“Carm?” You say, and she hums noncommittally, not taking her eyes off the group of people. 

“Carmilla,” you repeat her name and she finally turns her head to look at you.

The Christmas lights strung up in the trees are making her eyes twinkle, there’s snowflakes caught in her hair and her lips are quirking up into a confused smile and just looks so beautiful that it completely takes your breath away – honestly, you’re a journalism major, you should be able to come up with something better than that cliché – and it makes you forget your ten million doubts or reservations, and you lean up to press your lips against hers.

There’s a brief moment where she’s frozen in surprise against you, which is just long enough for you to start panicking that you’ve done something royally idiotic, but then her arms are circling around your waist, and she’s kissing you back.

For all her sharp angles and sarcastic jabs, she’s a lot gentler than you ever imagined she would be. (And okay, yes, you’ve imagined kissing her. A lot. In several different situations. And positions.) She tastes like candy canes and chocolate, her lips are soft against yours, and when her tongue slides against your bottom lip, the rest of the world fades away and you completely melt into her.

You have no idea how long you spend kissing her, but eventually you need to take a second or two to remember how to breathe, and pull back slightly.

“You taste like peppermint,” you say once the kiss breaks, because you’re an idiot and it’s the first thing you think of.

“And you taste like sugar,” she smiles at you. “Which really does not surprise me.”

You feel more than hear Carmilla sighing happily against you when you try to kiss the smile off her face, and you pout at her when she pulls back again.

“You know I did offer you a candy cane. If you changed your mind and wanted one, all you had to do was ask. You didn’t have to resort to such elaborate measures,” she laughs, before her voice drops and she leans back in to whisper against your lips, “Although I’m glad you did.”

“Yeah, me too.”

(You call Lafontaine and Perry the next morning when Carmilla’s still asleep in your bed, her hair splayed across the yellow pillow in what is now your new favourite sight, to tell them you finally girl-ed the hell up 

“Finally Hollis, didn’t know how much longer I could stomach the lovestruck staring at each other when the other isn’t looking.”

“Thank- wait, what?”

“You remember when I said you look at her like you want to kiss her? Well she looks at you like she wants to eat you.”

“Um, she is a vampire.”

“Yeah that’s not really what I meant.”)

 /

Two days later, you invite Danny out for a pie date – a term Carmilla now takes offence at, because  _shouldn’t the only person you have dates with be your girlfriend, especially those that involve eating_  – to tell her you’re dating Carmilla.

You make idle conversation about the current snowman fiasco – the resulting smoke cloud from the Alchemy Club’s latest experiment gone wrong had resulted in the various snowmen dotted around campus coming to life and lurching around like the zombie incarnation of Frosty, causing everyone to stay inside for the last two days for fear of being gored by a carrot nose or strangled with a scarf – before you blurt out, “I kissed Carmilla.”

(Slight lie, you’ve kissed a lot more than just once in the past forty eight hours of dorm room confinement, since there’s only so long Netflix can hold your attention when Carmilla is cuddled up next to you, but you don’t think Danny needs to know that just yet.)

Danny nearly chokes on her forkful of pie, and you pat her on the back helpfully until she can breathe again.

“I- Wow, uh,” Danny stutters, seemingly lost for words.

“I just, you know, wanted you to hear it from me first,” you say. “I know things are still a little… tense, between us when it comes to Carmilla, but I still consider you a friend, and I didn’t want you to have to overhear it from someone else.”

“I- Okay. I mean I can’t say I’m surprised, but-“

“Wait, what?” You question, and Danny looks at you like you’ve grown an extra head.

“Well I’m only surprised that it took you this long.”

Apparently even your sort-of-ex was aware of your giant crush before you were. Fantastic.

You doubt Danny will ever be the person you can go and complain to whenever Carmilla’s being particularly insufferable, and double dates with you and Carmilla, and Danny and whoever she’s dating, (she’s still denying she likes Kirsch, but you’re not entirely convinced she’s telling the truth) are a distinct unlikelihood, but she doesn’t storm off angrily when you tell her about the Christmas tree and subsequent kissing, she doesn’t threaten the removal of any of Carmilla’s limbs, and the word stake isn’t mentioned once, so you take it as a non-verbal acceptance.

/

Danny shows up to your dorm room the following evening, dropping off a gift before she leaves for the airport. She’s spending Christmas in Mexico with her family (after a few days in London, which Carmilla finds hilarious, because _An American Werewolf In London? The joke makes itself, Danny Kessler_ ), and you’re slightly jealous that she’ll be in forty-degree weather while you’ll stuck with the mountain of snow Toronto is inevitably buried in.

You wish her a Merry Christmas, and Carmilla grunts a reply of  _you too, Fido_  to Danny’s  _happy Christmas Morticia_ , and you close the door before they can start flinging insults at each other.

There’s two envelopes sitting on top of the neatly wrapped box and you nearly trip over your own feet in shock when you see the word Fangs scrawled on one of them in Danny’s familiar handwriting.

You deposit the envelope next to Carmilla where she’s sitting on her bed, trying to decide between two different bottles of what looks like the exact same shade of black nail polish, and she eyes the offending object with a mixture of disdain and mild trepidation. “What the hell is that?”

“Going by the shape and the snowflake sticker being used to hold it closed, I think it’s a Christmas card.”

Carmilla grumbles something under her breath, and rips open the envelope, ignoring your protests that it’s not Christmas Day yet, before breaking into laughter and showing you the card. There’s a picture of a bat wearing a Santa hat on the front, and inside there’s no writing, only a paw print underneath the standard Merry Christmas inscription.

Rolling your eyes in response, you doubt you will ever understand the humour they seem to find in endless dog jokes (or tall jokes, or ginger jokes. Carmilla isn’t exactly starved for material) and bloodsucker comments, and you glare at Carmilla when she makes a comment about being glad she didn’t sneak some wolfsbane into the card you got for Danny.

/

Three days before you’re due to go back to Toronto, you’re binge watching Gossip Girl instead of packing when Carmilla comes barging back into your room after turning in her last paper for the semester. You idly wonder how much longer the hinges will last, what with people dramatically flinging the door open all the time.

“Hey cutie,” she greets you, beginning the arduous process of stripping off the eighteen layers she has on. Apparently vampires do feel the cold. “Have you seen the weather?”

You haven’t moved an inch since you cuddled up under a mountain of blankets and switched Netflix on, and you can’t see the window from where you’re slumped on the bed, but Carmilla is covered with a light dusting of snow – that is now going all over the floor, which will melt, Carmilla won’t bother to clean up and you’ll probably stand in right after you put your fluffiest socks on – so you can make an educated guess.

“No, but I’m assuming it’s still snowing.”

“I see you’re still as observant as ever, sweetheart,” she flashes a smirk at you, before throwing her cold and snow-soaked scarf – no, hold on,  _your_  cold and snow-soaked scarf, actually – at you and laughing when you pout at her. “But I meant the weather predictions for the whole week. It’s supposed to blizzard for the next three days.”

“So…” Carmilla’s in the middle of changing her shirt (it’s black and mostly see-through; of course Carmilla wouldn’t let a small thing like negative temperatures affect her usual wardrobe) to your oversized Silas University hoodie, so your attention is mostly taken up by all the pale skin suddenly on display, rather than whatever point she’s trying to make about the weather.

“So, Silas is located at Middle of Nowhere, depths of Austria, so if the snow stays this bad it’s kind of unlikely you’ll be able to get to the airport. If your flight isn’t cancelled anyway."

That catches your attention, and you groan, pausing Netflix and opening another tab to check the weather report, hoping Carmilla is just pointlessly making it up. She isn’t.

“And even if it doesn’t get cancelled,” Carmilla continues. “And for some bizarre reason you still trust a pilot to fly an oversized metal can through a blizzard, it’ll probably delay you enough that you end up missing your connecting flight in London, and you’ll be stuck at Heathrow for hours, and all without your wonderful girlfriend to keep you company.”

“I get the point Carm,” you grumble, reluctantly shuffling over and making room for Carmilla to clamber under the mountain of blankets you have, immediately snuggling up to you and proceeding to act as if she isn’t as engrossed by the show as you are.

Sure enough, the next few days past and the snow barely lets up 

For some reason, you’d always assumed the weather at Silas was one of the few things not consumed by the vortex of weirdness that almost everything else has gotten sucked into, but then again, Silas has never had a very firm grasp on reality, so once patches of snow start turning an alarming shade of lilac you think this might be less a freak Austrian snowstorm and more a regular Silas snowstorm. Either way, you’re positive it’s going to prevent you from getting to the airport tomorrow and flying home, and therefore you’re going to be spending your Christmas with the sulking ghost of bad moods past.

You call your very stressed out sounding Dad and let him know you’re not going to be able to make it home, but manage to placate him with multiple promises to Skype him on Christmas Day, reassurances you won’t be stuck at Silas alone, Carmilla, Lafontaine and Perry will be here too, and an agreement to come and visit at Easter.

Your phone beeps just after you hang up, and you discover Danny has sent you a series of snapchats from an extremely sunny beach in Mexico.

(You replaced your prehistoric fossil of a phone with something made within the past three years as soon as you were no longer occupied with avoiding getting yourself killed by a millennia old demon, and you and Lafontaine take a lot of pleasure in bombarding Carmilla with stupid snapchats. Carmilla doesn’t quite return the enthusiasm, unfortunately.)

You throw your phone violently into your pillow and slump forward to lay your front, groaning. Carmilla chooses this moment to come out of the bathroom, and you don’t even need to turn your head to look at her to know she’s probably dripping water all over the floor  _again._

“Everything alright?” She questions. “Last time I came back and found you sprawled out like that, you were convinced you were going into sugar withdrawal because the store ran out of cookies.”

There’s a muffled thump that can only be her towel hitting the floor, and you keep your face pressed against the pillow to hide the way your face flushes.

“You were right,” you grumble.

“Usually am sweetheart,” she replies, and there’s the noise of fabric being ruffled as she pulls on some clothes that probably cover about the same amount of skin, or less, as her towel did. “About what in particular, this time?”

“The snow is too bad for any of the planes to take off, so I’m staying here for winter break.”

“Heartbreaking,” Carmilla deadpans, and you feel the mattress dipping slightly as she sits down next to you. Your grumbled huff of  _Carm_ is muffled by the pillow, and she brushes your hair off the back of your shoulder and leans down to kiss the skin left bare by your tank top.

“Well, forgive me for being selfish, but I’m not really all that upset that you aren’t getting to leave,” she whispers, her mouth right by your ear, before nipping at your earlobe. “In fact, I’m kind of glad you’re staying.”

“Carmilla,” you whine, trying to sound annoyed, but your irritation at the weather is lessening in a direct response to her mouth dusting soft kisses against your skin. She starts nudging at your side, trying to get you to turn over to look at her.

“Oh come on cutie, it’s not the worst thing in the world is it?” You give in to her prodding, rolling onto your back and then you’re looking up at the smirking smug face of the vampire hovering above you. “Being stuck here with me? I can think of plenty enjoyable ways to pass the time, and very few of them involve leaving this exact spot.”

She trails off as she kisses you properly, and you promptly forget all about the weather.

Inevitably, someone eventually barges in on you (Perry, this time, before she stutters out apologies and flees the room with a face a similar shade to her hair) just as Carmilla’s hand is starting to inch its way under your shirt, and you’re pretty sure if you ever want enough privacy to actually sleep with your girlfriend without any interruptions, you’re going to have to book a hotel room not only somewhere outside of Austria, but possibly outside of the entire European continent.

/

Two days before Christmas, Carmilla untangles herself from your afternoon cuddling session, announces she has to go “take care of some vampire business, sweetheart,” and breezes out of the door after kissing you on the cheek.

You think nothing of it, assuming she’s just out replenishing her blood supply, until you open the fridge to get a can of grape soda and realise there’s an almost full carton of “soy milk” sitting on the top shelf, but you’re too tired and still slightly hungover from the huge Christmas party the Zetas threw the previous night to waste too much energy wondering what she’s doing.

(Now that you think about it, the only difference that you could see between a Zeta Christmas party and a Zeta any-other-day-of-the-year party was that the inane electropop music was replaced with inane electropop Christmas music. You decided to join in with the excessive alcohol consumption somewhere between a rap version of Deck The Halls and a dubstep remix of Feliz Navidad.)

You’re in the middle of taking a photo of the snow outside, a reply to Danny’s daily sunny snapchat, when Perry comes dashing into your room. Apparently it’s of the utmost importance that you accompany her into town for some extreme last minute Christmas shopping, which strikes you as especially weird, even for Silas, because in what world would someone like Lola Perry leave Christmas shopping until the last minute?

Your confusion, and mild suspicion that there’s some big plan that is being (badly) kept a secret from you, increases a little bit more when you ask why Lafontaine can’t go with her instead. It’s cold outside and you’re somewhat tired, since your earlier “nap” with Carmilla didn’t involve a lot of sleeping 

“Uh,” Perry stutters and avoids looking you in the eye. “They had some work to finish up in the biology lab.”

You forget to be offended at the blatant lie because wow, Perry is an even worse liar than you. Lafontaine’s classes all finished four days ago.

You agree to go with her when she offers to buy you hot chocolate, and you just assume that maybe her and Lafontaine have had some sort of fight, and she needs someone to complain to, and that elsewhere on campus Lafontaine is ranting to a probably bored Carmilla.

After what seems like endless amounts of just walking up and down the main street and staring into various shop windows, all while Perry not-so-surreptitiously checks her phone every ten seconds, you’re pretty sure there has been no fight with Lafontaine, Perry doesn’t actually have any last minute shopping to do, and is simply keeping you distracted away from your dorm room.

It takes about thirty minutes, but eventually Perry smiles at her phone after checking it for the hundredth time, excitedly announces she’s found the perfect present for her grandma (the first time you’d asked who she was shopping for she said her grandfather, but you choose not to question it) and drags you into a store that you’ve already walked past at least three times. She buys a fluffy scarf in a particularly obnoxious shade of orange, but thankfully says you can start heading back, where it’s warm and not snowy and your bed and your girlfriend are, and starts off on a brisk walk down the street.

When you get back to campus Perry insists on walking you right up to your door –  _there are reports of some Christmas wreaths going walkabout and their leaves are very sharp Laura_  – and you don’t question it when you turn the corner to your hallway and see Lafontaine exiting your room with a huge grin on their face. You also decide not to comment on the fact that there are twigs in their hair.

“Hey, how was shopping? You find a present for your uncle, Per?” Lafontaine greets. Clearly failure to keep the story straight isn’t just limited to Perry.

There’s a loud thump from behind the closed door and you hear Carmilla’s voice swearing – presumably – in at least three different languages, before hissing in English, “Stupid  _fucking_  lights, holy shit.”

“Well, nice to see you Hollis, Per and I have to go do that thing we have to do now, see you later and have fun,” Lafontaine gets out all in one breath before taking Perry’s hand and dragging her down the hallway.

You watch them running away, and then look at the door apprehensively, wondering what could possibly be lurking inside the room. There’s another muffled thump, Carmilla swears in German, and then what you think sounds like a lot of paper being rustled loudly. You push the door open cautiously, stepping inside, and you’re pretty sure your mouth falls open as you stare, gaping like a goldfish at the transformation the room has undergone.

It looks like Hallmark has thrown up in your dorm. The overhead light is switched off, but the room is lit from Carmilla’s extensive candle collection dotted around, and your yellow and orange fairy lights have been taken down and replaced with red and green Christmas fairy lights strung  _everywhere_ , along the walls, around the bathroom door, above both your beds.

You laugh when you see the mistletoe on the wall beside your bed – like you need a reason to kiss Carmilla – then blink in confusion, wondering if you’re seeing things, because there’s a tree in your dorm room. Your desk, and the tiny tacky light up tree you’d placed on it, has been shoved out of the way to make room for an actual  _Christmas_   _tree_ , covered in tinsel and baubles and even more fairy lights, and topped with a giant star.

In the middle of it all is Carmilla, standing in the space between your beds, and you briefly wonder if the odd-coloured puddle you’d accidentally stepped in on the way back was actually a portal to another dimension, because you’re having trouble convincing yourself that the grumpy, sarcastic, leather-clad vampire you’re so used to dealing with, is the same person as this festive display of domesticity that’s currently sporting a Santa hat and a nervous expression.

Functioning mostly on autopilot, you close the door behind you, remembering to lock it for once, since you do not want anyone barging in on you.

“I thought we weren’t allowed trees in the dorm rooms,” you blurt out, because you’re still slightly stunned that Carmilla has somehow managed to sneak an entire  _tree_  into your room.

“How convenient that our floor don was suitably distracted with some last minute shopping, huh?” Carmilla smirks from where she’s hunched over your laptop doing something, and as she stands up from the bed, Christmas songs start to play quietly. “Judging from the look on your face I take it she managed to keep her trap shut after all and not spill about what I had planned?”

“Oh well, I knew you were up to something, Perry’s a horrible liar,” you say and Carmilla laughs as she walks over to you. “I just didn’t expect… This.”

Carmilla immediately leans in to kiss you when she reaches where you’re still standing stock still in shock, and you nearly melt when you feel her smile against your lips.

“You did all this?” You ask when the kiss breaks, looking over at the Christmas tree again just to make sure you’re not imagining everything.

“Lafontaine helped,” Carmilla replies, wrapping her arms around your waist and walking backwards, pulling you into the centre of the room. “Something about it looking a little weird if anyone saw me carrying a tree by myself across campus.”

She presses her lips against yours again, whimpering quietly when you suck on her bottom lip. You pull back slightly, leaning your forehead against hers, and bring your arms up from where they’re holding her waist to loop around her neck.

“Whatever happened to Christmas being an overhyped holiday that has lost all meaning and is now nothing more than a mass consumerist advert for Hallmark?”

Carmilla shrugs, smiling. “Guess I finally found a good reason to cave to festive commercialism.”

“Wow,” you laugh. “Who know you were such a romantic?”

“Only for you, sweetheart. I figured, since you couldn’t have Christmas at home, I could bring Christmas to you,” she murmurs.

You don’t even realise until Carmilla stops talking that you’re now spinning lazily around the room, slow dancing with her to the song playing from the laptop, and it’s nothing like the five-second waltz during the missing girls fiasco. For starters, there’s no errant redheads hogging your bed, Carmilla’s hands are gentle on your waist and she’s watching you with an unguarded look of utter adoration, so you tangle your fingers in her hair and tug her closer to kiss her again.

You’re perfectly content to just keep kissing her gently, listening to the soft noises of contentment she’s making, but then her tongue is licking into your mouth, her hands tightening their grip slightly on your waist, and heat starts flaring through your body 

Carmilla’s teeth bite at your bottom lip at the same time her hands slip under your shirt, her nails softly scratching at your lower back, and she moans quietly into your mouth when you press your entire body against hers, walking her backwards until the back of her legs hit your bed. She tumbles down onto it, dragging you with her until you’re straddling her lap.

Nothing is aflame, or exploding, or melting into toxic goo, no one is barging through the door demanding your attention in the latest supernatural mishap, no demonic monsters or hungry lights are currently preying on unsuspecting innocent girls (you hope), and as far as you’re aware there’s no form of evil fungus currently plotting to take over campus. It’s just you and Carmilla, who one moment is smiling up at you like you’re the only person in the world, and the next, she’s yanking your shirt off and throwing it on the floor, and then you’re on your back on the bed, Carmilla staring down at you ravenously.

You briefly wonder if this is moving way too fast, since she’s only been your actual girlfriend for just over a week, but when she starts kissing your neck, you decide that you don’t care, and that you really, really want to know what her bare skin feels like against yours.

After (and much later), when Carmilla’s fallen asleep and you’re watching her chest rise and fall and her eyelashes fluttering against her cheek, (all in a totally  _not_  creepy way of course) you gently run your fingertips across her cheekbones and curve of her jaw, and wonder how long you’ve been in love with her without realising it.

/

Christmas Eve you spend the morning of of embroiled in another huge snowball war with Lafontaine, Perry and some of the Zetas, but the majority of your afternoon and evening is spent cuddled up in bed with Carmilla and Netflix, although you pay significantly more attention to Carmilla than to whatever inane movie you’re both pretending to watch.

On Christmas Day, you wake up with a face full of Carmilla’s hair. It’s only 7am, and Carmilla is unlikely to be conscious anytime before noon, so you promptly go back to sleep, cuddling into the surprisingly warm body of your girlfriend.

You get woken up again a few hours later when your phone beeps loudly. Carmilla sleeps like the dead, so you’re not worried about her being woken up by the noise.

Hmph-ing under your breath at the interruption, you scrabble around on the bookshelf above your head until your hand closes around your phone, and you blink blearily at the text from Perry.

_MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Remember that you volunteered yourself and Carmilla to help with making Christmas dinner, so please be round no later than 2pm :)_

It’s almost noon already, and you groan, dumping your phone on the floor, because you  _really_  don’t want to get out of bed. Sure, it’s Christmas Day and you love food, but your bed is warm, and Carmilla has rolled over in her sleep to cuddle into your side, her head on your chest and her arm slung across your stomach, and she’s wearing hardly anything, so you’re kind of loath to leave. Besides, you and Carmilla plus cooking has historically never ended well.

“Carm,” you murmur, nudging at her and trying to gently roll her off you to wake her up. She mumbles something incoherent, and her arm tightens around you. “Carmilla,” you try again, and you can feel her smiling against your skin so you know she’s awake.

“No,” Carmilla eventually grumbles sleepily when you try to wriggle out of her arms. “Stay. Sleep.”

“I have to pee,” you lie in an attempt to get her to let go, and Carmilla huffs, but her arms loosen around you, letting you scramble out of the bed. She stays sprawled out on her front, her hair a mess, and you nearly forget about Perry and Lafontaine and Christmas dinner when you see the way her dark eyes rake up and down your body hungrily 

You spin round, away from Carmilla and her seduction eyes, picking a tshirt up off the floor and tugging it over your head, ignoring Carmilla’s whine of disappointment behind you. “I told Perry I’d help make Christmas dinner, and when I said  _I_  would help, I meant  _we_  would help. So it’s time to get up, sleepyhead.”

“Dinner?” Carmilla repeats from behind you, and you can practically hear the smirk in her voice. You need to stop mentioning anything to do with meals or food around her.

You turn around and narrow your eyes at the smug looking vampire, who’s rolled over and is now sitting up, the blanket still covering most of her body. “Was that a question or a nickname?”

“Both?” Carmilla shrugs and the blanket falls down slightly further on her chest. Your gaze immediately focuses on the new bare skin on display. Carmilla notices, and she settles back against the pillows with a smug smile, watching you silently contemplate the merits of being on time for dinner preparations versus the merits of more sex.

Sex wins, obviously, and an hour later she’s pressing kisses against your neck, ignoring you when you half-heartedly mention that you should probably get out of bed and start getting ready to leave. You try to sound firm on your next suggestion, but then there’s teeth scraping along your throat and her hands are sliding lower and lower on your waist, and you’re fairly positive you’re going to end up being extremely late.

Two hours later you arrive at Perry and Lafontaine’s room, and then Perry wastes another fifteen minutes by lecturing you about being an hour late, while Lafontaine smirks at you like they know exactly the reason you were late. Or maybe they’re smirking at the giant hickey on Carmilla’s neck that you’ve only just noticed she hasn’t bothered to try and hide.  _Vampire healing, darling, it’ll have faded by the time we eventually make it to the Ginger Twins’ room._  Clearly, Carmilla overestimated herself.

Making Christmas dinner goes marginally better than the gingerbread men disaster from the beginning of the month.

Lafontaine and Carmilla are banished from the kitchen to the Sofa of Shame after they burn a second lot of roast potatoes (Lafontaine’s fault the first time because they were too busy trying to get Carmilla to show them her fangs, and Carmilla’s fault the second time because she’d gotten distracted by pressing you against the counter and kissing you far too inappropriately for public), but after that, you and Perry (mostly Perry) manage not to burn or set anything on fire, and the huge amount of food you produce looks and smells delicious.

All three of you yell at Carmilla for eating the last slice of turkey –  _seriously dude, you’re dead, you don’t even have a working digestive system, stop eating everything_  – but she’s instantly forgiven when she produces two bottles of the same ludicrously expensive champagne that she used in her original attempt at seducing you. 

/

If there’s one thing you can count on at this ridiculous school, it’s that no matter how weird and insane and bizarre things may seem at a current moment, they can always (and usually do) get weirder. 

For instance, walking past the fountain in the middle of the quad and noticing that the panther statue usually situated on top of it has uprooted itself, and is instead chasing squirrels by the pond, doesn’t faze you at all. You also know to avoid the lone bookshelf at the back of the botany section in the library, as the bright magenta book that sits on it tends to start screaming whenever anyone gets too close to it. And when a campus wide notice goes out announcing that the pool is temporarily closed due to a carnivorous kraken infestation and the swim team has to use the lake instead, you think nothing of it, and just hope that whatever is lurking in the lake doesn’t have a taste for the human flesh of the non-merpeople part of the swim team.

But for some reason, you’re still having trouble wrapping your head around the fact that there are deranged killer  _snowmen_  running around campus. Maybe it’s just because you find it difficult to disassociate snowmen with your childhood, where things like vampire girlfriends and werewolf sororities and supernatural universities were all figments of your imagination.

“This has got to be one of the weirdest things that has ever happened at this place,” you say, staring out of Lafontaine and Perry’s window and watching as two Zetas get chased across the quad by one of the few remaining snowmen that haven’t yet been set on fire or staked with an icicle.

“Really?” Lafontaine says with a raised eyebrow from where they’re standing next to you. “Weirder than the fact your girlfriend rose from the dead over three hundred years ago?”

You ignore Carmilla snorting behind you. “Well-“

“Weirder than the fact your ex sort-of-girlfriend’s monthly mood swings involve growing fur and fangs and howling at the moon?”

“That’s not-“

“Weirder than the fact that your could’ve-been-future-mother-in-law would  _literally_  have been the in-law from Hell?”

“Sweetie I think she gets the point,” Perry tries to interject.

“Weirder than the fact that instead of attending classes and lectures and actually getting an education, you spent the first two months of your freshman year trying to avoid being sacrificed to an evil light by said in-law-from-Hell and her band of bloodthirsty vampires?”

“Laf, you’ve made your point, you can stop talking now,” you huff, turning around and walking towards the sofa where Carmilla’s curled up with the entire second bottle of champagne, in preparation for the high probability of “Christmas movie night” turning into “how many terrible vampire movies can we force Carmilla to sit through before she gets the urge to kill someone."

She stiffens slightly when you plop down next to her, throwing your legs across her lap and your arm around her neck without thinking.

“Oh crap, sorry,” you say, because you’re aware that she’s still slightly uncomfortable with being too affectionate in front of other people, and you’re about to move to a less cuddly position when her hand lands on your leg, keeping you still.

“It’s okay, cupcake,” she says quietly, nodding and smiling when you ask if she’s sure. “It’s just Perry and Laf. Not a big deal.” You glance over towards the kitchen to make sure neither of the other two are paying you any attention before you lean forward and kiss her softly.

You ignore Lafontaine and Perry squabbling about what movie to watch and tangle your hands in her hair, sighing contentedly against her lips when her champagne-coated tongue slides into your mouth.

She sucks on your bottom lip, and her hand starts to slide further up your thigh, and then- “Please don’t desecrate that couch, it’s been in Perry’s family so long it’s practically an heirloom.” And then Lafontaine’s voice is rudely cutting through the dizzy haze that kissing Carmilla puts you in.

“What?” They say in response to the trio of unimpressed looks now being directed their way. “If you two want to get your bloodsucking freak on, do it in your own room, not on my girlfriend’s prized couch.”

Carmilla rolls her eyes, but dutifully moves the hand on your upper thigh to the slightly more PG rated position of just below your knee. (The fingers of her other hand are still stroking patterns into the skin of your lower back underneath your shirt however, and you wonder if you’re going to actually be able to concentrate on the movie at all.) Fixing a bored look on Perry where she has apparently won the argument of who gets to pick the movie, and is now rifling through a stack of DVDs on the bookshelf, Carmilla snarks, “So, what asinine and woefully inaccurate vampire movie am I being subjected to this time?”

“Oh no,” Perry says, looking pointedly at you and Lafontaine. “Even I am sick of Dracula, and Nosferatu, and Twilight, and Let The Right One In, and True Blood marathons, so I can only imagine how the actual vampire must feel.” Carmilla looks like she’s two seconds away from shoving you onto the floor and leaping up to hug Perry.

“Also, Laura mentioned that you like Hitchcock,” Perry continues, and Carmilla smiles excitedly when she holds up three DVDs: Psycho, Rear Window and Vertigo. “And you thought we had nothing in common.”

“I cannot believe I ever thought you were annoying,” Carmilla says happily when Perry takes out the disc for Psycho, and you’re pretty sure that’s the nicest thing she’s ever said to someone that isn’t you.

/

Just before you and Carmilla leave to go back to your own room, Perry starts rummaging through a drawer and then produces two brightly wrapped presents. She hands the one covered in Christmas tree wrapping paper to you, and the one covered in Halloween pumpkin wrapping paper to Carmilla.

She stares in confusion at the gift being proffered to her, as if she’s worried it’s about to grow teeth and try to bite her. Which, you suppose, is always a possibility at Silas.

“What’s this?” She asks dumbly.

Perry blinks in confusion. “It’s a present, from Lafontaine and I. Merry Christmas, Carmilla,” she says, before she ushers you out of the room.

Once you get back to the dorm room and you’re both settled on your bed with hot chocolate, Carmilla immediately tears open the present, and you realise the pair of redheads actually do listen to your rants about Carmilla stealing your stuff. They’ve bought her a fluffy scarf –  _she keeps “borrowing” my scarf, always when it’s cold and I need it, and I don’t want to die of frostbite. Or any kind of bite, for that matter_  – and a mug –  _I don’t think you guys realise how difficult it is to clean blood out of a Tardis_  – that has a picture of two people on it, one saying, “What’s it like to be kissed by a vampire?” and the other replying, “It’s a pain in the neck.”

It’s hardly the most groundbreaking or thoughtful present anyone’s ever received, but Carmilla looks like she’s about to cry, and you eventually manage to coax it out of her that she just isn’t used to having even one person, let alone people, care about her this much, and you feel your heart break all over again at everything she’s been through.

The enormous box from Danny that’s been sitting beside the Christmas tree and taunting your curiosity for the last few days turns out to be a mammoth sized box of cookies, apparently enchanted so they won’t ever go stale –  _like cookies ever last long enough to actually go stale with you around, sweetheart_  – and a replacement spatula, since your original one was tragically broken in a scuffle with a particularly vicious astrology book from the library.

You text Danny to say thank you, and she replies with a photo of a chew toy and a 25% off coupon for dog grooming at the pet store in town that you definitely did  _not_  get her, sitting next to the stuffed toy wolf that you  _did_  get her, asking if Carmilla’s ever considered a career in comedy.

Carmilla pulls two neatly wrapped gifts out from their hiding place under her bed, presenting them to you with a kiss and a  _merry Christmas darling_. Inside the smaller of the two boxes is an  _extremely_  expensive looking charm bracelet, and you really don’t want to think about how much money it must have cost. There’s two charms already attached to it, a little bat –  _figured this might be more your style than the original batwing charm I got you_  – and a cookie –  _couldn’t resist, sorry buttercup._

Carmilla has a nervous look on her face as you rip off the paper on the bigger box, and starts rambling as soon as you take out the Polaroid camera sitting inside.

“I, uh, I noticed you don’t have an actual camera, your phone doesn’t count, and I don’t know if photography is even your thing, but what with your ridiculously endearing need to document every-“ you cut her off with a kiss, launching yourself at her and making her fall backwards against the bed.

“It’s perfect,” you say, and because Carmilla seems to inspire the cheesy romantic in you, you add on, “You’re perfect.”

When her hands start drifting down your body after another few minutes of kissing, you bat her hands away and scramble off the bed, digging out your present for Carmilla from under your own bed. It’s wrapped in paper that features two snowmen (snow-women? Snow-people?) holding hands and little hearts floating around their heads.

She bursts out laughing when she notices the fangs drawn onto one of the snowmen in each pair, and takes more care in ripping off the paper than she did with the other present to preserve your artwork, making a Carmilla-esque quip –  _should ask the art department to rename the Rembrandt Building to the Hollis Building, you are a true artist_  – about it as she does.

You’ve never outright asked who her favourite philosophers are, but she’s talked about Kierkegaard and Voltaire the most, and when she mentioned a few weeks ago that there were a few of their works she hasn’t had the pleasure of reading yet, you immediately started hunting down copies of them. And when you spotted the necklace with a little cat charm on it during one of your shopping expeditions with Lafontaine, you immediately dragged them into the shop and put up with their teasing comments while you paid for it.

“I know it kind of, you know, pales in comparison to everything you did,” you stammer nervously in much the same way she did when you opened her present, because  _oh God what if she hates it I really should’ve asked what she wanted I’m a terrible girlfriend_ , waving your hand around to indicate the tree, the decorations and the two gifts. “But-“

“Hey, Laura, don’t worry about it,” she interrupts. “I mean, if I’m being honest, you didn’t really have to get me anything.”

“Wait, what?” Your eyebrows scrunch in confusion, and she shuffles closer to you on the bed, tugging on your hips until you’re in her lap again.

“Don’t believe for a second that I don’t appreciate it, because I do, I love what you got me. And I fully plan on annoying you by reading them aloud even though you don’t speak a word of Danish, and your French is fairly terrible for someone who lived in Canada for eighteen years,” she teases, and your heart may or may not skip a beat at the l-word. “But what I mean is…” she trails off, and she has that awed smile on her face again, the one that makes you feel like she’s never seen anyone like you. “As long as I have you, I’m happy. There’s nothing in the world that I want more than you.”

Your heart definitely skips a beat at that, and if you weren’t sure that you’re in love with her before, this is the moment that solidifies it.

/

Dating a regular vampire is probably difficult enough, but dating one with extreme PTSD from being buried alive for seven decades, and deep emotional scars from three hundred or so years of abuse at the hands of her mother is the not the easiest thing in the worldand you know you can’t magically wash away three centuries worth of pain and loneliness by being a perfect girlfriend, but you’ll be damned if you aren’t going to try.

Carmilla still wakes up screaming from nightmares in the middle of the night (or afternoon) sometimes, and you discover she hates elevators and other similarly confined small spaces, airplanes and underground railways, (she takes you to Paris in the summer and she refuses to go anywhere near the Metro) and thunderstorms. She isn’t a fan of fireworks either, she says, but they’re bearable as long as you’re there with her.

But you’re always there for her when she wakes up whimpering about blood and coffins and Maman, holding her and stroking her hair until she stops shaking from the nightmares, reassuring her that she’s not a monster and that you love her. You distract her with kisses and cuddling when Silas is assaulted by particularly violent thunderstorms for a week straight in late February, and you absolutely do not recreate any low points of her tragic backstory with inappropriate sock puppet shows.

(Although now that you think about it, you couldn’t even if you wanted to, considering Lafontaine “borrowed” your sock puppet collection for a mysterious experiment last month, and you haven’t seen the socks since, nor have you received an update on what exactly this experiment entails. Though you did see some vaguely familiar blue and white polka dotted socks taking a walk around the dorm kitchen the other day.)

Carmilla kisses you at midnight on New Years Eve, as fireworks explode in the sky above you, and then murmurs something in a language you don’t recognise against your lips –  _ég elska_ _þig_  – then in what you think is Slovak –  _milujem t’a_  – then German –  _ich liebe dich_  – and then French –  _je t’aime_  – before finally whispering  _I love you I love you I am so in love with you_  against your mouth, and you discover that it is possible to fall more in love with someone every single day.


End file.
